According to ANSI (the American National Safety Institute), a loose reducing bushing can be used to reduce the molded arbor size of a grinding wheel, but it must not exceed the width of the grinding wheel and shall not contact the mounting flanges. Currently, conventional reducing bushings are only available as distinct components, and are sold separately from the grinding wheels with which they are intended to operate. There are a number of problems associated with such conventional bushings, ranging from safety to product management.
For example, and with respect to safety, in many applications the reducing bushing is relatively thin, and inadvertently using the associated grinding wheel without the bushing in place would be easy enough to do. This is because the “play” in the unadapted grinding wheel on the arbor of the grinding machine may be slight, and therefore difficult for a machine operator to detect. In any such case, the wheel would not be properly mounted on the arbor of the grinding machine, and therefore presents a significant safety risk (particularly for high speed-wheels that become unstable and/or break apart when not properly mounted). In addition, there is a risk that the donut-like bushing will fall out during the mounting process thus allowing the wheel to not be secure on the arbor.
With respect to product management, the customer (e.g., end-user) must know to order or otherwise purchase the appropriate reducing bushing with the corresponding grinding wheel. This can be a confusing and/or tedious process that frustrates the buyer's purchasing experience. In addition, large retailers typically offer a limited number of SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) space to grinding wheel vendors. Thus, the venders are ultimately limited in the product offerings they can sell to the retailer, because the vendors use up valuable SKU space for bushings (in addition to the SKU space used for grinding wheels with which the bushings are used). As such, the vendors are limited to the amount of primary product (grinding wheels in this case) that they can sell to the grinding wheel retailer.
Such safety and product management issues associated with bushings remain unrecognized and unresolved.